


when eden falls

by silentsonata



Series: nice but inaccurate oneshots [9]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Heavy Angst, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley, M/M, Mutual Pining, Self-Hatred, Self-Sacrifice, Swearing, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-12-01 19:30:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentsonata/pseuds/silentsonata
Summary: In which, between The End-That-Wasn't and The Swap, a demon and an angel break. Other things explode.





	when eden falls

Crowley stands up, knocking his chair over in the process, and screams. Aziraphale hasn’t heard him scream before, pupils constricting like prey in a predator’s gaze, hasn’t ever felt the brunt of Crowley’s wrath.

“A ticking time bomb, angel,” Crowley snarls, forked tongue flicking out dangerously, opening his palms to Aziraphale, pleading, “S’what I am.” His feet strike the timber floor hard and irregularly, like the chimes of a grandfather clock in an earthquake, ominous in its unpredictability. He gestures at his whole body with a single hand, face contorted in disgust. “All _this_ could very well just, just go kaboom at any time – _any time_ – and you, of all people, don’t deserve to get caught up in it.”

There is a thinly veiled ‘_I care about you_’ behind these words, and Aziraphale does not fail to hear it. Beneath that, there are layers and layers of self-doubt and unanswered questions, full of both tiers and tears of frustration. _Crowley is, by all means, a cake that someone had made,_ _intending the best of things, _Aziraphale thinks,_ but as this very pâtissier had tried to fix their mistakes by adding little things here and there, they had created a leaning tower of disaster._

“Listen, angel. You’re better off without me.” Once all of Crowley’s layers are cut away, what is left is only a raw wound, inflamed with anger and desperation and the fear of hurting someone else. It had scabbed over, a few lifetimes ago, but Heaven and Hell had each taken one side and ripped the fresh scab off, leaving him to bleed black venom that only worsened the pain. Crowley’s words slur in his passion and he has gone far, far beyond intimidating Aziraphale by drawing out the ‘s’ sounds in his words.

But before Crowley can continue on his tirade, a train-wreck of a one-sided conversation, Aziraphale manages to interject. “No!”

It comes out louder and more passionately than he expected, and he resists the urge to cover his face with his hands in embarrassment as his voice echoes a little in the bookshop. Crowley freezes.

“We can still _do _something, Crowley. You won’t hurt me. Look around you, there are, um, so many books and things we can consult for advice. We have Agnes-”

“Oh, Agnes, Agnes, of course!” Crowley mocks in a terrible rendition of Aziraphale’s voice. Then he laughs, voice devoid of mirth, tinted with drops of ink-black venom. “We can’t _change_ fate, angel. The only thing I can do right_ now_ is make sure that you’re not caught up in this shitstorm I started. No-one else’s. _I _dragged you into this.”

“And I _chose_ to let you drag me into it!”

“_Ha_, very funny, pull the other one.” Crowley turns his back to Aziraphale and starts shouting at the bookshelves, unable to meet Aziraphale’s eyes. “Told you already. I’m a demon, it’s what I do, I tempted you, and now… and now – and now, I might _lose _you.”

“You won’t,” comes the soft reply. “We’re on our side.”

Crowley whirls around, eyes filled to the brim with derision. “Shut _up_. It’s not about sides anymore, angel, it’s about who lives and who dies. _They_ don’t care about sides. As long as they can have their, their dick-measuring contest, anything that stands in the way can and _will _get divinely fucked_ over_.” Crowley stops, gazes at Aziraphale’s hair, notices how it is trembling, and then hears the sniffs.

It takes a few moments to sink in, each sharp intake of breath from Aziraphale acting as lead weights dropped on Crowley’s diaphragm. “I just,” Aziraphale heaves out in between sobs, like even the effort of speaking has been sidelined by the more important task of crying, “I just wanted to help.”

Crowley almost feels bad. He almost wants to hug Aziraphale. But it is not the place of a ticking bomb to be close to the person it loves, in case it detonates without warning, leaving the only thing they care about as a casualty. _It’s for Aziraphale’s own good_, he reassures himself. _A little hurt now will go a long way to keeping him alive. _Crowley thinks that he could go into holy water, eyes wide open, without a regret, if it means that Aziraphale will be safe. He doesn’t consider the fact that Aziraphale doesn’t want to spend the rest of eternity without Crowley beside him. Doesn’t even consider how Aziraphale would feel without him there.

He fancies that Aziraphale would enjoy peace and quiet for once.

And it is with that thought that he turns his heel and saunters out of the bookshop, down into a self-imposed hell. It is that thought that covers his ears and urges him to ignore Aziraphale’s cries for him to wait, to not go. It is that thought that plays radio static in his mind to distract him from his desire to turn back and embrace Aziraphale, falling at his knees in apology. He slams the car door.

As Crowley tears down the London streets in his Bentley only a few minutes later, Aziraphale’s sobs continue to ring in his ears. They are louder than the Best of Queen album that the Bentley cannot play at a greater volume, lest it risks damaging itself. Crowley slams his foot onto the accelerator, like he can escape from his problems that way. The memory of Aziraphale crying lingers in his mind and the further he gets from the bookshop, the more pressing the memory is.

Crowley slams the door to his flat open. He has been slamming a lot of things recently. As soon as the thought occurs, it is gone. He takes no time in heading to his own version of Eden.

Crowley screams at the plants. Screams until nothing comes out, then screams a little more. Screams, because he could’ve been on the same side as Aziraphale, but misstepped, and fell. Screams, because he thinks that he has forgotten how to cry aeons ago. He is wrong, again, he notes as he wipes tears from his eyes, and wonders if leaving Aziraphale is the wrong choice too. Crowley berates himself for wondering.

Slowly, the thin rasps that come out of Crowley’s throat are not enough to satisfy him, and he steadies himself as he leans against a wall. He points a finger at an offending terracotta pot, the one with the tall philodendron, and makes a crushing motion with his hand. The pot explodes, and shards of terracotta fly through the air. Crowley looks up through his tears, and a shard grazes his eyebrow. It bleeds, and he lets the blood run into his eye, red and viscous.

Crowley does the same to all the other pots, conducting a symphony of destruction with his hands. He finds no joy in the sound that this indoor world, created painstakingly by his hand, makes as it collapses. The plants remind him too much of himself. When the room is filled with nothing but shards of what once were plant pots, spilled soil, and fallen greenery, he stops and looks at his masterpiece, an artist who has had his art ripped out from him.

He somehow staggers into the barely-furnished living room, wholly unprepared to do any sort of living, and sinks down heavily into the red cushioning of the gold throne. Crowley is hollow now, empty of even the last few drops of tears in him, and he can do nothing but sit and regret. Halfway across London, Aziraphale does the same, wondering what he did wrong. If he had done things differently, would Crowley have stayed? Could they have been happy?

Would they ever be happy?

**Author's Note:**

> this is day 2 of whump-tober: explosion (find [here](https://whumptober2019.tumblr.com/post/187356400823/october-approaches-and-so-does-whumptober-2019)) :D
> 
> art by my lovely friend, the other half of my brain cell
> 
> [Find me on Tumblr!](https://silent--sonata.tumblr.com/)   
[Chat to me on Discord!](https://discord.gg/pTcajxx)   



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